Question: In a class of $9$, there are $3$ students who are secretly robots. If the teacher chooses $2$ students, what is the probability that both of them are secretly robots?
We can think about this problem as the probability of $2$ events happening. The first event is the teacher choosing one student who is secretly a robot. The second event is the teacher choosing another student who is secretly a robot, given that the teacher already chose someone who is secretly a robot. The probabilty that the teacher will choose someone who is secretly a robot is the number of students who are secretly robots divided by the total number of students: $\dfrac{3} {9}$ Once the teacher's chosen one student, there are only $8$ left. There's also one fewer student who is secretly a robot, since the teacher isn't going to pick the same student twice. So, the probability that the teacher picks a second student who also is secretly a robot is $\dfrac{2} {8}$ So, the probability of the teacher picking $2$ students such that both of them are secretly robots is $\dfrac{3}{9}\cdot\dfrac{2}{8} = \dfrac{1}{12}$